Odaiba Area

Odaiba is a man-made island out in Tokyo Bay, and it’s home to the kind of experiences you’ll definitely tell your friends about when you get home. The hot spring theme park, the Trick Art Museum, the Miraikan science museum, and Legoland all cluster here, making it easy to fill an entire day with so much sensory overload, we’ll be reeling.

If we’re feeling energetic, we can walk across the Rainbow Bridge from Tamachi Station and see the amazing views of Odaiba and the Tokyo skyline along the way (takes about half an hour).

From the South Promenade, you can see the lights of Odaiba.From the North Promenade, you can see the lights of the city and Tokyo Tower.

Or if we don’t feel like walking, we can take the monorail from Shinbashi station. It loops out over the bay, and we’ll get a great view of the island as we go from station to station. Once we get to Odaiba, there are fun things to do at every station.

Odaiba-kaihin Koen station

First, let’s stop at The Trick Art Museum. It has 45 different scenes designed so you can pose in them and take pictures doing incredible feats.

You can do everything from battling ninjas……to surviving a shark attack.

Then let’s go upstairs and stop by the Sony Explorascience Museum. It has lots of entertaining light and sound exhibits to play with, then I will totally beat you at Smile Fight.

Battle Royale!

Then, if we’ve brought along a kid or two, let’s go to Tokyo Legoland. It’s got models of all my favorite Tokyo neighborhoods (built of Legos, of course!), and as the lighting cycles through 24 hours, the cars roaming the streets turn on their headlights and the buildings light up. They’ve even sneaked in a few fun surprises, like a button that makes Godzilla pop up out of a Shibuya skyscraper and a baseball stadium that’s actually a pinball game you can play. (Note: Adults aren’t allowed to go into Legoland without a kid, so be sure you recruit one before you try to buy a ticket.) Anyone can go in the store, though, which has awesome Lego-themed merchandise like Minfig popsicle molds.

The trees in the Legoland model of Senso-ji temple change color with the seasons.

On the lower level of the Sea Side Mall building is Joypolis, an indoor amusement park/arcade with lots of virtual reality rides.

Hungry yet? Restaurants are on the 5th & 6th floors, and the ones on the Tokyo side have great views.

Next, let’s go to the Oedo Onsen It’s an only-in-Japan indoor theme park, built just like an Edo-era (samurai times) hot spring resort town. We’ll change into our yukatas (thin cotton kimono), then meet up in the town square before going to the bath areas (separate for men and women), where we’ll jump into all the different hot spring baths. Afterwards, we can meet up again in the outside courtyard for a walk through the flowing foot bath stream. There’s even a hut with a pool where we can get a therapy fish pedicure.

If you like cars, we should stop at the Toyota Mega Web, a car showroom so huge they have a test track inside for trying out their newest models. They also have a great vintage car museum called the History Garage.Sometimes they have crazy demo cars on display.Beyond the Toyota showroom is the Odaiba ferris wheel. It’s excellent for taking pix of the Tokyo skyline, especially at night.

In the month of December, the Venusfort mall has some excellent Illuminations

And if you’ve got a taste for the deliciously creepy, right past the Lego store on the second floor is Strange Love, the spookiest store you’ll ever see, and definitely not something you’d expect to find in a mall anywhere but in Japan.

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